A new survey suggests that chief medical information officers are optimistic about the progress they’ve seen in medication management processes though they still see some obstacles that need to be tackled. Their top concerns seem to be related to the sharing of prescription information and a lack of faith in the medication lists as they’re currently generated.
According to research conducted by the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems (AMDIS) and vendor DrFirst, medication management improvement efforts have made a positive impact on the rate of adverse drug events over the past five years.
About half of the CMIOs said they were satisfied with their existing medication management process, while 12% said they were dissatisfied.
The CMIOs reported that the biggest gaps in the medication management process were incomplete patient medication histories (cited by 80%) and misaligned medication reconciliation and care transition cycles (75%). Respondents said that this kind of misalignment sometimes lead to misinformed decisions by care teams.
Another vulnerability respondents identified was lack of visibility into patients’ medication adherence levels, with 91% calling it the biggest gap in medication history adherence and monitoring. They didn’t name any particular solution that could address the problem, though existing medication management apps for consumers might at some point address this issue.
Eight-five percent of responding CMIOs said that when patients don’t participate in the medication reconciliation process it leads to gaps in the patient medication history. They didn’t specify the point in the process at which it might be most helpful to involve patients.
In addition, 95% of respondents said that it would help matters to cut down on the order entry and data validation tasks pharmacists and clinical staffers had to perform, arguing that it would enhance patient safety and improve efficiency.
Other patient safety concerns they cited included a lack of process buy-in and/or process compliance (77%), a lack of process ownership (73%) and workflow variations across departments (91%).
As part of the discussion, the surveyed CMIOs noted that the right technology approach could help them address the opioid epidemic.
As things stand, they told AMDIS, it’s not clear the providers are able to prevent opioid abuse since at times they can’t easily distinguish between drug “shoppers” and other patients.
However, 65% of CMIOs said that if providers could access an integrated clinician workflow including e-prescribing of controlled substances, access to state Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs to track patients’ opioid histories and access lists of other prescriptions, it would be easier for them to avoid potentially harmful drug combinations.
